First to Last
by Fearless-Elegance
Summary: Drabbles that chronicle the life and the journey to love of one CEO and his mutt. In-Progress.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: First to Last

**Pairing**: Seto/Jou, future mpreg with a light serving of Bakura/Ryou and implied Yami/Yugi.

**Summary**: Drabbles that chronicle the life and journey to love of one CEO and his mutt.

**Warnings**: Angst, Violence, language, sexual and adult situations (maybe some actual sex?) and future mpreg.

**A/N**: So, this is hugely, HUGELY inspired by the amazing Seto/Jou works of **Reizbar-Ookami** and **Willowsnake**. Those two write amazing fics that I love to pieces. Keep in mind, even though the flow will be interrupted with drabbles featuring other couples, and it will seem a little disjointed until the stories of Seto and Joey really collide; they all correlate and are in ( some sort of ) order. As always, reviews are very much appreciated. Pretty angsty in the beginning, but there will be some humorous bits.

Push, Pull, Tug

He smells like lavender.

Seto doesn't notice this because he wants to-it's by complete accident. During one of their numerous scuffles, he manages to get the shorter male into a chokehold (and would have kept him there if the infamous Geek Squad hadn't come to his rescue) and the scent rises from the struggling boy's body. It's sweet, yet not overbearing. Light, like spring and air. He breathes in deep, tells himself he's only doing it to feed his oxygen-deprived muscles so he can get a firmer hold on the struggling the mutt.

Joey pushes back, tries to get some leverage and Seto pulls and pulls, squeezing the life out of him until-

Bakura untangles his arms from the blonds slender neck and Yami tugs him off the nearly unresponsive body. Joey drops to his knees, coughing and sputtering and glaring all the while like the defiant son of a bitch he is. He's probably used to near death experiences; almost being murdered in the middle of the school hallway right before homeroom is probably 'just another day in the life of Joey.'

He doesn't even remember why they fight anymore. He's not sure why the blonds insistent vitriol sends him over that fine edge between casual assault and attempted murder but it always does. Joey has honed his recalcitrance to a goddamned art form and that pisses Seto off like nothing else. The blond is the paradigm of failure; broken home, poor grades, borderline poverty, and yet he didn't seem at all phased by it. As if his failures didn't define him-as if he expected to rise above it all.

"You two have got to stop this!" Tea shouted, tears in her sapphire eyes. "It's gone too far! At this rate you're going to kill each other!"

Adjusting the collar and cuffs of his uniform, he snorted, glaring at the girl. "Maybe that's the point."

"Fuck you, moneybags," Joey manages to wheeze out.

Picking his briefcase up off the floor, he turns on a heel and heads for the nearest exit. He has better things to do than stand there and argue with the third rate dog and his cheerleaders. He has a company to run, a brother to raise, homework to do and-

Most importantly, he's got to get that damned smell off his clothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Hope you guys are still with me. I'm not great with drabbles, which is why they usually end up a lot longer. So, some may be longer, some shorter, it really just depends on how much I'm trying to cram into one sitting. Please forgive the inconsistency.

Parlay

He's not stupid.

He wonders if Seto knows how fucking transparent he is ( so terribly see-through like all that expensive crystal china he loves buying ). It's not hate. At least, not all of it. It's not love either, but it's something. Something strange and obscure, like shadows and deceit and no one answer would be a right one because there isn't a right answer to this. Seto singles him out, hangs onto his every word. As if everything he says matters. Every odious barb thrown at him, every inexorable battle for dominance holds weight. He's heard people call the brunette worse things and watched the CEO shrug it off as if it's of no consequence. But never to Joey, oh, never him.

If he really thought about it-and he tells himself that he doesn't-he thinks he might not hate the CEO half as much as he should. Such a revelation excites and disturbs him all at once.

He doesn't know what they're fighting for or what the victor gets other than a half-moment of supremacy before the other comes back; snarling and growling and more vengeful than the last time.

But he thinks, that maybe, just maybe, he can turn this violent crusade into something different. Maybe not something perfect, or even all that much better, but something more defined, something with a beginning and middle and end; something more than this emotional limbo. Something other than the clawing, snapping, snarling half-beasts they reduce each other to.

If he plays his cards right, he thinks he just might be able to.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: Tendershipping. Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated.

* * *

As One Loves Certain Things

"Why did you stay?" Bakura asks, feeling Ryou curl up beside on the bed. "Why didn't you run? Why didn't you ask the others for help?"

Ryou, already used to the questions, answers as he always do. "I wanted to stay. I didn't want to run. You needed my help, I didn't want anyone else's."

"I could have broken you."

"But you didn't."

"I could have killed you."

"But you wouldn't."

Bakura blinks, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room. He remembers the wickedness that lived in his heart; how the pain of his past followed him even into his new body. Some nights, if he lays very still and closes his eyes, he can hear the cries and screams of his lighter half, as if the memories are embedded in the very walls of their home. At night, the memories come alive and make it hard to sleep. He wakes up every hour or so, checks Ryou's pulse, and only when he hears the slow, steady thump of a pure heart does he fall back into an uneasy slumber.

He wanted power for destroy, the world at his mercy and Hell at his right hand.

He doesn't know how his hikari saved him from the darkness, but he's glad of it.

(Can you forget who you were in favor of who you are?)

_No. _

Sensing Bakura's tension, Ryou presses a light kiss to a well-muscled shoulder. "You need some rest. We have school tomorrow, and Joey's coming over to study."

His eyes slide shut and he smiles. "I love you." _As one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul._

Ryou hums in sleepy delight, curling closer to a toned back. "I know. And that's why I forgave you long ago."

In the quiet still of night, Bakura waits for the day that he's forgiven himself.

* * *

A/N: That line is from a beautiful poem by Pablo Neruda. It'll probably be referenced a lot in different drabbles because it's simply that beautiful.


End file.
